Nielsen data indicates smartphones poised to take over from feature phones 'by 2011'
Published March 26, 2010
The U.S. market is at "the beginning of a new wireless era where smartphones will become the standard device consumers will use to connect to friends, the internet and the world at large," according to Nielsen Wire senior vice president Roger Entner.
Entner writes that smartphones have made up an increasingly large percentage of all mobile phones sold in the U.S. since the second quarter of 2008, and sales of less-advanced feature phones have sunk proportionately.
While smartphones still make up a clear minority of purchased mobile phones, Nielsen predicts that they will equal and then surpass feature phones by the third quarter of 2011, based on extrapolations of adoption rate data.
This widespread shift toward more capable mobile devices is a clear signal to digital marketing professionals that the smartphone will become an increasingly important target surface in the foreseeable future. Integrated marketing campaigns may also find their social components becoming increasingly effective, as more users log on to Twitter and Facebook from their mobile devices.